In the city, as the night passed, the fighting in the streets everywhere was of the fiercest and most sanguinary description. In Corporation Street a huge barricade with machine guns had been constructed opposite the Victoria Law Courts, and, assisted by 200 Volunteers, who, inside the latter building, fired from the windows, the enemy were held in check for several hours. Time after time shells fell from the Russian guns in the midst of the defenders, and, bursting, decimated them in a horrible manner; yet through the long close night there was never a lack of brave men to step into the breach and take up the arms of their dead comrades. Indeed, it was only when the enemy succeeded in setting fire to the Courts, and compelling the defenders to cease their vigorous rifle fire from the windows, that the position was won; and not until hundreds of Russians lay dead or dying in the street. In New Street the Irish Volunteers distinguished themselves conspicuously. After the retreat they had been withdrawn with the Canadians into the city, and, waiting in the side thoroughfares at the opposite end of New Street, held themselves in readiness. Suddenly, as the enemy rushed along in their direction, an order was given, and they formed up, and stretching across the street, met them with volley after volley of steady firing; then, rushing onward with fixed bayonets, charged almost before the Russians were aware of their presence. Without a thought of his own personal safety, every Irishman cast himself into the thick of the fray, and, backed by a strong body of Canadians and fusiliers, they succeeded in cutting their way completely into the invaders, and driving them back into Corporation Street, where they were forced right under the fire of four Maxims that had just at that moment been brought into position outside the Exchange. Suddenly these guns rattled out simultaneously, and the Russians, unable to advance, and standing at the head of the long broad thoroughfare, were swept down with awful swiftness and with scarcely any resistance. So sudden had been their fate, that of a force over two thousand strong, not more than a dozen escaped, although the defenders were taken in rear by the force of 500 Russians who had occupied the Post Office on the previous night. From Corporation Street a brilliant, ruddy glow suffused the sky, as both the Law Courts and the Grand Theatre were in flames, while St. Mary's Church and the Market Hall had also been fired by incendiaries. In the panic and confusion, conflagrations were breaking out everywhere, flames bursting forth from several fine shops in New Street which had already been sacked and wrecked. Maddened by their success, by the thirst for the blood of their enemies, and the rash deeds of incendiaries, the Muscovite legions spread over the whole city, and outrage and murder were common everywhere.